"Consider also at the benefits to our economy and our workforce - more work in building schools, hospitals, roads, reservoirs and housing for the new arrivals. "

Increased house prices due to increased demand, increased ethnic tensions, increased traffic and public transport congestion, increased CO2 emissions, increased consumption of water in a drought prone nation, increased environmental degradation, increased domestic food consumption and decreased food exports,.......

No thanks.

If you want a larger population and to so badly help the third world then why don't you renounce your Australian citizenship and move to the Asia or Africa? Put your actions where your mouth is!

But most of your fellow Australians DO NOT want a significantly larger population regardless of the plight of the third world.

Quite right, Mr Windy! David could achieve the same change in living standards for himself by moving directly to Bangladesh - Dhaka for instance, or Mexico City, where there's often not enough drinking water to go around - I'm sure he would enjoy the lifestyle there and it would benefit Australia because he wouldn't have a computer to clutter up Online Opinion with his annoying nonsense.

What a marvelous vision for the future of Australia! Just open the borders and let the tired, poor, huddled masses move to Australia. It’s worked in America, hasn’t it – America took in countless millions of immigrants, but did that fix world poverty? Obviously not – there are more people living in extreme poverty today than ever before in the world’s history. There are 25,000 people dying every day from starvation and starvation-related illness. So will Australia taking in millions of immigrants fix world poverty? Well of course it won’t. So why do it?

You, David, and all those like you who argue for open borders are clearly not a bit interested in the future welfare of human kind – either of the people living in poverty overseas, or of future generations in our country who will live in poverty too if you have your way.

The best way of tackling world poverty is for resource-hungry nations like our own to stop growing, for our international aid budget to increase, for female literacy and education and rights in poor countries to be expanded, along with access to contraception.

Open Australia's borders and according to David we get:
1) A collapse in wages and conditions
2) an explosion in third-rate, jerry-built slum dwellings at the urban fringe
3) Hospitals under even more strain than at present
4) Even more tollways and traffic congestion
5) Overcrowded beaches and national parks you have to pay to get into

Terrific. Good one. No thanks.

Thank you, Cherful, for your concern about my knees, not that they're much use at my age. I agree with your ambivalence.

SPQR,
Thanks for this very interesting information. But just because there are Islamist groups within the Shi'a, and more particularly the Shi'a in central Afghanistan, does not mean that all, or most, or even all that many, Hazara people - even if they are nearly all Shi'a - are Islamists. Some may be Shi'a-Islamist only in the sense that they oppose continued Sunni domination and persecution, but not, if you like, Islamist per se, no more than all Christians in, say, Gulargambone are fundamentalists.

If the Sunni and Shi'ite Islamists ever get together, then we would all be in dire trouble. What might indicate that this is happening ? An end of Sunni bombing of Shi'ite shrines and cities in Iraq, followed by acts of brotherly love, for one thing. Co-operation between al Qa'ida and the Iranian regime, for another. Co-operation between Hezbollah and Sunni militias in Lebanon, or Hezbollah and Hamas, would be pointers. But Hamas does not seem to be co-operating even with al-Qa'ida, fellow Sunni fruitcakes.

It remains to be seen of course if the current upheavals in the MENA region degenerate into Islamist-vs-democratic struggles, as they did in Iran. I certainly hope that the far-left does not do its usual opportunist trick and help to deliver power to the reactionaries, rather than to the social-democrats and other progressive forces, its potential colleagues.

Hi Thermoman,

So are you suggesting that, if

" .... America took in countless millions of immigrants, but did that fix world poverty? Obviously not – there are more people living in extreme poverty today than ever before in the world’s history."

.... that if America HADN'T taken in those countless millions (36, I think it was), then there would have been LESS extreme world poverty ?

Ex post hoc :)

And, as you say, "Open Australia's borders and according to David we get:
1) A collapse in wages and conditions
2) an explosion in third-rate, jerry-built slum dwellings at the urban fringe
3) Hospitals under even more strain than at present
4) Even more tollways and traffic congestion
5) Overcrowded beaches and national parks you have to pay to get into."

Gosh, that doesn't sound very nice. You know for sure that all this will happen ? I suppose we should add:

"6. The sky will fall."

I've read David McMullen's article with great interest - and I couldn't decide whether he was serious or whether it was "tongue-in-cheek," especially after reading the beautiful sonnet on the plaque of the statue of Liberty. His proposal however reminds me so much of the early migration to the US. However, I do have an addendum to his suggestion of open borders. Yes, let them all in, but under the proviso that they sign a ten year contract to work in rural Australia to boost our agricultural production and infrastructure projects, and only on completion of their contract would they become eligible for citizenship and re-location
to major centres. At present migrants concentrate in major cities where there are few jobs and housing and they become a burden on government support. Farmers are desperate for labour to work their properties and frequently stock and produce are lost due to labour shortage. This solution of enforced contracts for immigrants - may be a win/win solution. This suggestion is nothing new. European migrants after the second World War were forced to sign two year contracts to work throughout the country wherever labour was needed. They worked on the railways, roads, sugar-cane fields, farms, snowy mountains, et cetera.

Australian farms are highly mechanised for efficiency. There is no work there apart from the seasonal fruit picking done by young backpackers and grey nomads, which explains the population drift to the city.

There is casual employment in mining for the skilled, able and fit, but miners do not create townships any more, preferring to fly men in and out for the long ridiculously long shift work.

'Big Australia' is sold to the punters as a way of filling in a 'vacant' Australia, but the reality is that there is only a coastal strip and unskilled migrants go where there are many familiar looking faces in the queues at Centrelink.

Contracting to work for a period in the country is not be enforceable in modern times. It would spawn an appeals industry for lawyers, advocates and activists.

Talking of country towns, the ambience has definitely changed for the worse in so many of them over the past decade or two. You wouldn't send your worst enemy to a place like Walgett and there is a steady growth in the number of towns like that. Talk with travellers, there are many country towns that used to be a nice stop for fuel and a light meal, but are avoided for fear of being abused and robbed in the street in broad daylight.

Come to think of it, there is a growing number of city suburbs that are 'no-go' areas too. Say, that must be the 'progress' the 'Big Australia' supporters have been talking about.